Quakers: Find Way To End Violence

September 15, 2001|By Margo Harakas Staff Writer

Quakers have long been a dissenting and often lone voice in the midst of war and violence. As pacifists, they believe there are root causes for the world's evil and that raising an armed fist in retaliation is never the answer. And so it is once again in the wake of the tragedies that struck the United States this week.

While citizens across the land clamor for a quick, military response, Quakers, the majority of them anyway, call for prayers and urge restraint.

"There are ways for dealing with people who are violent. There is no reason to take innocent lives because innocent lives were taken," says Cilde Grover, executive secretary for Friends World Committee for Consultation, a Quaker consultative body headquartered in Philadelphia.

"More killing can't stop it. There have to be alternatives and we have to keep looking for them."

On the day of the attacks, the Quakers issued a statement expressing profound grief "at the loss of life, the suffering and the sorrow ... We pray earnestly for comfort and strength for those who are injured and grieving. So, too, we hope with all our hearts that in responding to today's tragic events, all persons will find ways to end the violence that is consuming the world."

The group expressed gratitude to those rescuing and caring for the injured, comforting the grieving and working for peace and reconciliation.

And it reiterated the belief "that the challenge before us all is to break the cycle of violence and retribution."

For more than 350 years, that's been the Quaker message. And more than just voicing it, the Religious Society of Friends, as the Quakers are more formally known, have been working around the world to try to pre-empt violence.

Over the decades it has provided famine relief, medical care and work projects in places such as Korea, Hong Kong, Algeria, Bangladesh, Kampuchea, the Balkans and the Middle East, just to name a few. It has set up health clinics in Haiti, provided health and safety training for Mexican workers exposed to dangerous chemicals, and participated in peace and reconciliation programs in war-torn regions.

In 1947, the Quakers were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for humanitarian work in Europe after World War II.

"We're working for peaceful solutions for all of us to live together in harmony," Grover says.

It hasn't always been easy. During World War II, many Quakers were persecuted and vilified for going against the tide and holding to their anti-war position. And in the wake of Tuesday's attack on the United States, some American Friends Service Committee offices were getting threatening phone calls.

Those guilty of the horrific crimes in New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania have to be made accountable before a court of law, Grover says.

But beyond that "we have to work at the ground level on the things that cause people to react with violence," she says. "We have to get rid of poverty and the terrible inequalities and we have to make sure the world is fed."

In short, she says, we have to deal with the circumstances that make people feel "so frustrated they see no other way to react except to fight their way out."

Margo Harakas can be reached at mharakas@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4728.